This Habit Will Transform Your Confidence In 2026

This one habit will transform your confidence in 20, 26 and beyond. And when you implement this, I'm going to share in just a moment, you're going to notice an immediate effect, not, oh, in six months, maybe this will work, I mean today. And then if you compound it, you don't just do one day, right? You want to keep doing this. That's why it's a habit. It will change truly everything in your confidence and then that ripples out, right? If your self confidence goes up, how does it affect your life at work, around other people, socially, relationships? There's no end to what can change when you change your confidence. And so I'm really excited to share this with you. First, let me share the opposite, which is what you might be doing. Most people that I work with are doing. In case you don't know me, I'm Dr. Z's. I'm the founder of the center for Social Confidence. And I've been helping people overcome social anxiety to become more confident and speak up for themselves at work, socially and dating relationships and stop being so nice and people pleasing and afraid of conflict and what other people think. I've been doing that for almost 20 years at this point. And so I learned from my own journey and now helping thousands of people. And I've seen this one pattern again and again and again. In fact, when I'm gonna work with somebody, I can tell you within several min, one, if we're gonna work together, and two, if they're gonna be able to get results. I never take on any client that I don't think is gonna be able to get powerful results. Because I'm listening for this one thing and I can hear it in their language, I can hear it in their history, I can hear their patterns. And it's something you can change, but not until you're absolutely ready. And here's what it is. Of course, a big part of keeping social anxiety going is avoidance. You might already know that, right? And so instead of approaching the situation, we avoid it. That's not the thing, by the way. I'll get to the thing in a minute. But that's a, a real pervasive pattern that we have to shift to build confidence. So if you're avoiding conversation, if you avoid speaking up at work, if you avoid approaching people, if you avoid, avoid, avoid, you're never gonna build confidence in that area. So you probably already know that one, right? But here's the habit that most people are doing that keeps the avoidance going. Are you ready? They withdraw from the situation and Go into overthinking, overanalyzing what you might have heard as analysis, paralysis about the situation. So when there is a risk, when there's a moment to strike, when there's an opportunity. Because confidence is about stepp into the moment, the uncertainty. Right? That's what the Latin root of confidence is. Confides with faith, you step into the unknown. I don't know how this person's gonna respond. I don't know how this conversation is gonna go. I don't know. But I am willing to find out. And you know, to do that, I believe we need tools and resources to know that I'll be okay either way and have that sense of self confidence and resilience. That's what I teach people how to do. But we ultimately have to step into it. But the biggest toxic habit that kills confidence and keeps us forever in holding pattern is we don't just full on flee that kind of avoidance. We just pull back a little bit and go into our heads. Oh, is now the right time to say it? No, now's not the right time to say that. Should I say that thing? Ah, I don't want to say. That's the. Oh, oh, oh, the moment has passed and there's almost this like smug delight, right? Like, whew, I totally would have done it, but now I can't. Now it's awkward. The moment's over. Am I calling you out? Have you done that? Whether it's approaching somebody you're interested in or contact at work or some opera. Ooh, I could talk to that person. You know, there's someone in the company that maybe it'll be good to get to know. How would I say that? I don't know how to say that. Well, now's not the right time. They look busy, they look a little irritated. I should probably not approach them right now. How about now? No, not today. On Tuesday. Tuesday rolls around. Well, I don't know about that. Right. We delay, we overthink, we delay, we overthink. And it seems so reasonable, rational, intelligent, calculating, almost strategic. But when it's strategy is what I'm doing. What's your strategy? Avoid and delay forever. Okay. Now, of course, we never tell ourselves it's forever. It's always like, yeah, not forever, later. Because if it's forever, then I know that I'm fully avoiding it. And I can't admit that to myself. So I give this some sort of vague later, someday, maybe is kind of the energy around it. And someday, maybe never comes. It's not on Your calendar. Go open your Google calendar and flick through the months of the year, see if someday. And maybe you're on there, right? It's not going to be there. Here is the habit that you need to cultivate in 2026. You ready? Think, do more. Shorten the time of analysis, ideally to under three seconds for most situations. I'm not talking about making a massive life shift or moving or something with a three second deliberation. I'm talking about dozens of moments throughout the day, ranging from speaking up in a workplace situation, approaching somebody, what to say over here, what to say next in the conversation, and some of those even less than three seconds, right? You're in a conversation with someone and you pause for three seconds. I mean, you could do that. Sometimes you have a thoughtful pause, but every sentence, that's going to be a long conversation. So maybe even one second, just boom, boom, boom. It's a training of yourself. And at first it's like, that's freaky, man. Wanna move slow. One of my mentors used this metaphor, which I love. It's like a water slide. Life is like a water slide, this moment, right, Just flowing. And we can go down the water slide, you have your hands up in the air and see where life takes you and where you. The other one is to put your hands and your feet on the side of the water slide, go kind of SC your way down, try to slow it down as much as possible. And that's what a lot of people do. And I'll talk to them. And they're 30, 40, 50 years old, different decades. And they're not, you know, in a gutter, not living. They're living, they have a job, maybe they even have relationships, maybe a family, maybe single. But man, so many compounding years or decades of slow and missed opportunities. And it gets more, more and more and more. And then it gets more painful to look at. Cause they're like 10 years, 20 years, like, right? And it's reinforced with the story. It's like, well, I can't do anything about it anyway. And that's like the death loop. And the good news is none of that's true, but it does require a different way of approaching it. And so you can get more out of the next decade than you missed in the last two, but only if you make a radical shift. And that radical shift starts with thinking less and doing more. Let's go. I'm in. Okay. Anal. Yep. Let's take the leap. Let's take the leap. And you can start with small stuff. What clothes am I gonna wear? Walk in your closet, make a decision. What am I gonna order? Make a decision. And I also encourage people and clients that I work with, my mastermind, to do things like a cold shower. Not because I'm some sort of super macho biohacking guy, but because I know the psychological benefits of going into that, overcoming that flinch response, right? So if you train yourself to do that and you do that socially, you do that in relationships, you do that at work, it will create a whole different momentum. Literally today, if you start to apply that and if you need more support with that, you're like, oh, that sounds great, I'll do that later, right? When would now be a good time? How many more years do we wait? How many more decades of regrets do we accumulate? So I've been there, done that. I accumulated a decade of regret in my life and never again, right? So I'm always gonna err on the side of going for things in life. And guess what? So far it's worked out pretty freaking extraordinarily for me, for many of my clients, and I bet it can for you as well. So I'm curious to hear how this works for you. Please share in the comments what you're finding value, what you're learning from this. If you're like, that sounds great, but I don't know if I'm gonna do it, then, you know, now might be the time, beginning of the year to really commit. And we have a 12 month program that I run, it's called the UNST Confidence Mastermind. It's been running for over 10 years. We have over 700 graduates of the program and it produces life changing results. You can find out about it on my website. You can apply go to draziz.com,-r-a z I z.com and then just go to coaching and you can see unstoppable Confidence Mastermind. So if you watch my videos for a long time, you're like, that sounds great. I feel inspired for a few minutes. Let's turn that few minutes into months and then a lifetime of a whole different experience. Absolutely possible. You can see the testimonials on that page. It's truly extraordinary. So I hope this serves you. I wish you the best. In this coming year I'm going to be here with you on this channel. We're going to be growing together and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.